Frozen Moment (59 page)

    'What
was your second thought?'

    'That
I hope I don't end up in the same situation, knowing there's nothing that can
be done. Knowing I've got maybe a year left.
A year of pain,
perhaps.'

    He
slammed his hand against the wheel once again and gave a humourless laugh.

    'You
can hear the way I'm talking - she's going to die, and it's still all about
me.'

    'Do
you know what I hear? I hear someone who's fairly egocentric, wallowing in his
guilty conscience. You are, honestly! Sometimes I think it's as if you walk
around carrying some kind of imagined guilt. Maybe you don't even know where it
comes from, or why. But it seems to be bloody exhausting.'

    She
fell silent for a moment. When she went on, she lowered her voice.

    
'I don't think you should blame yourself just because death
frightens
you. Isn't it only human to react selfishly when you're
confronted with your greatest fear?'

    'You
mean my greatest fear is death?'

    'I
don't know. Is it? If it is, you're not the first person to feel that way. And
I've thought of something else, Christian. It would be good if you didn't get
angry again.'

    He
gave a wry smile.

    'You
probably don't need to say much. To Ann-Christine, I mean.'

    
'No, maybe not.'

    'I
mean it. What makes you think that anything you say will change her situation,
how she feels? It would be a bit presumptuous to think you had that power.'

    She
paused to give him a chance to respond. His silence gave her the courage to
continue.

    'But
I have noticed one thing. Since you, or rather
we,
found out that Ostergren was ill, you've been avoiding her - at least, that's
how it seems to me. It's as if you can't cope with being in the same room as
her. Isn't that true?'

    'If
you say so, it must be true.'

    His
tortured expression took the sting out of the sarcasm.

    'I
think that's much much worse,' Beckman went on quietly but undaunted. 'You
don't need to have all the right words to be there for a friend, but you do
need to bloody well
be
there.'

    It
was so long since Tell had cried he wasn't sure if it really was tears that
were beginning to throb behind his eyelids.
Bloody Beckman.
It was so typical of her, thinking she knew it all. She knew nothing about the
mess in his life, or why he couldn't look Ostergren in the eye. She talked
about being there, hiding behind the right words, the empty phrases, the
psychobabble. As if it was her strong point. And yet she-

    'Stop!'
she yelled.

    He
hit the brake so hard he thought he had strained his calf muscle.

    
'Back up a few metres!'

    Triumphantly
she pointed to something at the side of the road. Among the trees a car gleamed
in the headlights. Somebody had taken the trouble to park there instead of at
one of the passing points along the road. There was only one reason for that:
somebody had wanted to hide it.

    He
switched off the engine. The map confirmed that Sven Molin's

    
place
ought to be very close by. Instinctively they lowered
their voices to a whisper.

    The
farm consisted of a low metal-covered annex and an older house, which was
virtually in darkness when they arrived on foot, their torches switched off.
Between the two buildings misshapen clumps of grass forced their way up around
the wheel ruts where the earth was compacted.

    They
didn't make a sound, apart from the faint swish of Beckman's jacket. The lamp
on the end of the annex cast a pool of light in front of it, with a blurred
reflection of the glowing globe in the glass of the veranda. If anyone was
home, they were sitting in the dark.

    
As if by silent agreement they had both taken out their service
weapons.
Nor had either of them suggested out loud that they should
leave the car beyond the bend, but here they were, with neither a vehicle nor
the light from their torches, trying to make as unobtrusive an entrance as
possible.

    A
rustling in the bushes behind them made them jump. Beckman spun around, her gun
pointing in the direction of a shed.

    When
it was quiet again and their breathing had more or less returned to normal,
they carried on towards the house.

    'Take
the back,' mouthed Tell, walking slowly up the steps towards the front door. He
leaned over the fence and peered in through the window. A kitchen lay in
darkness, with only the digital displays on the fridge and microwave visible.
The place seemed dead.

    He
lowered his pistol and replaced it in the holster. The garden was a shadowland
in a pitch-black sea. He couldn't see any movement and didn't hear another
sound until Beckman appeared around the side of the house, moving through the
long grass. She too had put her gun away.

    'Seems
quiet,' she whispered. 'There's nobody here.'

    'Molin's
probably done a runner.'

    Tell
met her at the bottom of the steps. The moon emerged from its hiding place
behind a cloud, extending their field of vision.

    'Shall
we take a look around before we go?'

    Beckman
nodded and walked towards the annex. She could see Tell moving around the
perimeter of the garden.

    As
the tension eased she realised her feet were freezing; they were actually
starting to hurt in the cheap trainers she had bought on impulse the week
before Christmas. She was desperate to get home, to the children and a hot
bath.
A glass of wine.

    The
door was locked. She peered inside. By the glow of a fluorescent bulb she could
see rows of cages piled on top of one another and the mink inside.

    'If
the activists want to get in, they will,' she muttered with satisfaction after
she had tugged at the iron grille covering the window.

    Then
she heard rapid footsteps in the grass behind her, the muffled sound of
breathing, and before she managed to draw her gun someone was pulling at her
jacket. It was Tell. He was pressing a finger to his lips and there was a
desperate look on his face.

    'Bloody
hell,' she hissed. 'You nearly frightened the life out of me.'

    'This
way,' he whispered, pulling her with him.

    Her
heart was in her mouth. A few seconds later she was trying to think clearly as
Tell stared at her with an encouraging expression. He was shining his torch at
the back of the shed.

    A
rucksack was propped against the wall, with a well-thumbed map poking out of
the outside pocket. A neatly folded sweater lay on top of it. A pair of
binoculars was balanced on the sweater, and the remains of a fast-food meal
were a couple of metres away.

    Beckman
turned to
Tell
with a look he interpreted immediately.

    'Of
course he's coming back: he's left the binoculars and… He's not far away…'

    The
words died on his lips as a twig snapped not far off in the forest.

    Tell
clamped his jaws together. As quietly as possible they moved over to a dense
clump of fir trees just a few metres away.

    
Here
I am again,
Beckman said to herself as she grabbed the sleeve of Tell's
coat, thinking that the beating of her heart could be heard for miles around
because it was threatening to smash through her chest.
Terrified
and unreasonably euphoric in equal parts.

    Later
they would discover that the man had a pistol in his jacket pocket and a
hunting knife in a sheath on his thigh. However, he wasn't even close to
getting either of them out when they jumped him.

    The
chair was flimsy, with a plastic back. Presumably the table was fixed to the
floor. It didn't matter. He didn't have the strength to hurl it at the locked
door. Considerable anger was necessary for such a feat, and he was no longer
angry. And when it came to strength, if it had ever been contained within him,
it had run out through his feet, into the moss, there in the darkness next to
Sven Molin's house.
When his arms were forced behind his back
by the tall red-faced man that, in his confusion, he had mistaken for Caroline.

    He
had taken into account that this might happen. Perhaps not exactly like this,
but that he might be caught before he had completed his task. He had quickly
adapted to the new situation without wasting time and energy on cursing himself
for his carelessness, for moving too far away from his camp in an attempt to
cure his restlessness. For leaving behind clues, unforgivably, that had given
him away and delivered him straight into the arms of the police.
The mistakes of an idiot, an imbecile, ruining months of
preparation.
He could hear Solveig's voice in his head:
What have you
done, Sebastian? Your sister would never have failed like you.
And she
would have been right.

    He
had offered no resistance, but had cooperated as much as possible without
answering their questions. The brief cryptic message he had prepared but not
expected to need was sent with a couple of practised clicks on the mobile phone
in his pocket.

    He
knew she would understand.

    Afterwards,
while they were waiting for the circus to get under way, he had dropped the
mobile where he was standing. Of course it would be found later when the area
was searched, but by then it would be too late. He had pushed it discreetly
into the damp soil with his foot.

    When
the car arrived and the female officer carefully guided him into the back seat,
he felt able to indulge himself with a secret smile.

    The
inspector looked as if he had stepped straight out of a crime film - tall, with
a crumpled suit and a three-day beard. Then there was the short fat one with a
low forehead, the waistband of his jeans somewhere down below his beer belly.
The mannish old bag with the police logo on her sweatshirt.
They all believed he would be an easy nut to crack. They had hauled him ashore
like a fish in their net, and would hardly need to get started on their good
cop/bad cop parody before he broke down, allowing the truth to seep from him
like air from a punctured tyre.

    In
fact he hadn't settled on his strategy as he sat in the small windowless room.
His silence was a passive rather than a conscious act, and had nothing to do
with a refusal to admit what he had done.

    The
ridiculous little team clearly had a plan for situations like this, each one
with a designated role to play.
Beer Belly, uninspired and
unprofessionally aggressive, but too stupid to recognise the solution to a
problem even if it was staring him in the face.
Old
Bag, seeking eye contact and trying to get him on side.
The Suit
alternated between playing the good
guy
, offering
cigarettes and fetching sandwiches, and slamming his fist on the table and
demanding answers.

    None
of this was going to make him talk, since nothing they said was of any importance
to him. If there was one thing he had acquired, it was the ability to leave his
body, to transport his thoughts to a peaceful place where no one could reach
him, their voices coming and going in an unintelligible blur of sound.

    In
the windowless room he had lost all concept of time; he knew only that a large
part of the night had passed.

    Out
of sheer curiosity he considered trying to explain how it had all happened.
To see if they understood.
He wasn't afraid of going to
prison as a result of his confession; he almost expected to end up there sooner
or later.

    Several
times he opened his mouth to begin speaking, but closed it again when he
realised that his words would not penetrate through the interference. From time
to time the roaring sound filled the entire room. Only when the Suit leaned
across the table could Sebastian make out individual words.

    'You
murdered the wrong man, didn't you, Sebastian? You intended to murder Thomas
Edell, because you think he tried to rape your sister Maya that night twelve
years ago.
Thomas Edell, Olof Pilgren and Sven Molin.'